GEELONG — On November 26, leading building union activist Glenn Hodgman was tragically killed in a motor accident at Newport. He was 47 years old.
Originally from Tasmania, Glenn came to Melbourne in the mid-1980s, a carpenter by
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William Nessen, a freelance journalist and photographer from the US, spent two months with Free Aceh Movement (GAM) fighters in the northern-most tip of Sumatra from mid-May. Now returned from the daring journey, which convinced him
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The torrent of media speculation generated by the November 18 assault on Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) national secretary Doug Cameron has all the hallmarks of a good old-fashioned political stitch-up. The media
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On November 7, the federal Coalition government announced multi-billion-dollar, high-tech military purchases that will give the Australian Defence Force (ADF) the ability to launch major unilateral military aggressions in the
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Seven months ago, when the US army rolled into Baghdad, the US war machine seemed invincible. The US rulers seemed to be in reach of realising their goal of conquering Iraq and using it as a secure base from which to establish
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Shortly before the disastrous visit to Britain by US President George Bush on November 19-21, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was at the Cenotaph on November 11 to mark Remembrance Day. It was an unusual glimpse of a state killer
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In October, MICHAEL WHITBREAD won the position of 2004 president of Newcastle University Student Association (NUSA). The Activate ticket he was part of campaigned for free, accessible education, a commitment to progressive campaigns and student
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Simon Crean has gone, but is his replacement any better? The answer was a foregone conclusion even before the December 2 Labor caucus vote. The main options delivered by ALP powerbrokers are: Kim "Bomber" Beazley, Mark
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The November 28 Australian reported that federal education minister Brendan Nelson has watered down legislation attacking the higher education system in a bid to get it through the Senate. Labor, the Greens and the Democrats
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In fourth place on Business Review Weekly's 2003 young rich list was Eddie Groves, head of the child-care company ABC Learning Centres. At 14th place was his competitor Michael Gordon, who runs the new Peppercorn Management Group. Six years since the
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NEWCASTLE — There is mounting pressure on Premier Bob Carr's Labor government to retain rail services throughout NSW, as people organise to defend public transport. In the face of this, the government and its lackeys can only lie
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BY JOO-CHEONG THAM The ASIO Legislation Amendment Bill 2003 proposes to amend the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 in a far-reaching manner, by inserting additional secrecy provisions into the act's detention and questioning
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HOBART — The Tasmanian Labor government and Forestry Tasmania are facing a crisis of credibility. In October, former state forest auditor Bill Manning told a Senate inquiry about illegal practices, corruption, "bonuses" paid to
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Former Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) activist and Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) organiser Johnny Loh has died after a long battle with illness. Born in 1953, "Lohie", as he became known, grew up in the
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The November 18 assault on Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) national secretary Doug Cameron has generated a torrent of speculation in the corporate media about who committed the assault and why. Despite there being
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Iraq I In the United States, free speech is guaranteed under the Constitution, but that hasn't prevented the US Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from banning Arab broadcasting networks in Iraq that don't push a US line. In September, Al
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PERTH — The fight for Aboriginal rights, and for a better world, received a blow on November 26, with the passing away of Yaluritja Clarrie Isaacs. Clarrie, an Aboriginal activist, trade unionist, artist and fighter for
News
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PERTH — On November 27, public servants escalated their campaign for a new certified agreement (CA) with a 24-hour stoppage. The government attempted to put off the strike by making a late offer on November 25. Community and
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BRISBANE — On November 27, 200 people marched through city streets demanding an end to uncontrolled land clearing in Queensland. The marchers rallied outside the state parliament on the last day of sitting for the year. At the
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Executive action "Six former Kmart executives charged the company for nannies, luxury cars and private chauffeurs even as the discount retailer fought a losing battle against bankruptcy, creditors said in a lawsuit... [f]ormer chief executive and
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BRISBANE — The current US occupation of Iraq has "great parallels with the US war on Vietnam" in the 1960s and 1970s, Gary MacLennan, Queensland University of Technology lecturer and radical scholar, told a forum held at the
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A five-day dispute between Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) maintenance staff employed by Patrick Stevedores at Port Botany in Sydney and Fisherman's Island in Brisbane ended on the afternoon of November 21 after union members
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CANBERRA — The ACT Legislative Assembly passed the first industrial manslaughter laws in Australia on November 27. The legislation, introduced by the ACT Labor government, was supported by two independent MLAs and Greens MLA
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SYDNEY — In response to continuous media and government vilification of Muslims in south-west Sydney, 50 people attended a meeting in Bankstown on November 26 organised by the Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group entitled "Don't
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BY HEATHER MARR& MARIANNE JAMIESON ALBANY, Western Australia — On December 14, towns across Australia will celebrate their communities' support for refugees on temporary protection visas, who are threatened with deportation. The Albany City
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CANBERRA — The Save The Ridge campaign group is intensifying its campaign to defend the area of bushland threatened by the Gungahlin Drive road extension. Save the Ridge activists have begun marking endangered trees throughout
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Opposition candidate Andrew Hall has won 45.1% in the ballot for the position of national president of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU). Hall is a member of the militant Members First group within the union. "This
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Ian Macfarlane, the head of the Reserve Bank, must be really pleased with the work of his Australian Council of Trade Unions office. With unemployment falling to 5.6% and construction booming, the ACTU has submitted to the Australian Industrial
World
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US civil liberties groups have reacted with alarm to a leaked FBI memo which equates demonstrations in the USA with terrorist activity. The memo, released by the New York Times on November 23, was dated October 15. Its purpose is to
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TORONTO — In a significant victory for the right to organise on Canadian campuses, protests by Palestinian solidarity activists forced the University of Toronto (UT) administration to allow a planned conference to go ahead. The
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SAN FRANCISCO — Voters shocked the Democratic Party establishment in the November 4 mayoral election by giving Green Party candidate and city councillor Matt Gonzalez more than 20% of the vote. He came in second to moderate Democrat Gavin Newsom,
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Thousands of workers across Zimbabwe joined anti-government protests on November 18, despite threats of police repression prior to the marches and the arrest of scores of trade unionists on the day. Police brutally beat hundreds of
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JOHANNESBURG — If the public analyses of the African National Congress (ANC) government's November 13 "medium-term budget policy statement" are anything to go by, economic debate in South Africa is in a sad state. There has been
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The recent horrific bombings of two historic Turkish synagogues and two British targets in Istanbul, which left 52 people dead and some 70 injured, raise the question of why al Qaeda would target Turkey and massacre large
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The United States' "free trade" push suffered another setback at the November 17-21 fourth ministerial summit of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), held in Miami. Due to opposition, led by Brazil, to aspects of the pact, the
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MIAMI — The protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) ministerial meeting climaxed on November 20 with a large and peaceful march by more than 30,000 people opposed to corporate globalisation. However, the riot
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On November 23, US soldiers in Baghdad arrested Kasim Hadi and Adil Salih. Hadi and Salih are activists with the Union of the Unemployed in Iraq (UUI). It was not the first time that UUI members have been arrested by US forces. In
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The pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) had only 62 of its 206 candidates elected in Hong Kong's District Council elections on November 23. In the last DC elections in 1999, 83 DAB candidates were
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COCHABAMBA — This interview with socialist leader Evo Morales took place a month after the massive popular uprising against the Bolivian government's proposal to export the country's natural gas to the US for a meagre sum. Huge
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General John Abizaid, top gun in charge of Pentagon forces in the Middle East, summoned his senior commanders to a meeting the week of November 18 at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to discuss strategy for
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An international campaign was launched on November 20 to stop the contamination of Mexican corn (maize) with the DNA from genetically modified (GM) corn produced by multinational food corporations. Corn is the Mexican population's
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The biggest loser in the November 13 Catalan regional election was the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC), the Catalan sister organisation of the social-democratic Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE). For two decades, the PSC
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On November 17, following a meeting with US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, South Korea's defence minister Jo Young Gil announced that Seoul had agreed to send 3000 additional troops to Iraq, including combat troops. They will
Culture
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To the land of libertyThey came in freedom's nameThey came out openlyTo expose the villain's game From Miami's emigres"The Brothers" came in '96Their goals your power playTo injure and impoverish Free the Five, free the Five So five infiltrated
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Matrix RevolutionsWritten and directed by Andy and Larry WachowskiWith Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Keanu Reeves, Mary Alice and Laurence FishburneAt major cinemas REVIEW BY NICK FREDMAN In an epic blaze of hyper-marketing, the Matrix series
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Fat Cats and Running Dogs: the Enron Stage of CapitalismBy Vijay PrashadZed Books, 2002, 246 pp, $28.95 (pb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON Enron, the giant US-based energy corporation, may have died from "creative accounting" and speculative